Any games where you aren't the "main" character?

[Valrossar]

Time for a rant:

I'm starting to get very bored of gaming al lot of the time. Repetitive things such as "shoot this guy and move to this place" are starting to get the best of people's minds.

But the main reason i'm quite bored with gaming now a days is i'm always the "main" character in a video game. I've always been the ultimate powerful super god that the world can't live without and i'm in the prophecy and other loads of bland generic hollywood ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Yay, i'm a person who can shout people off cliffs and absorb the souls of dragons. What if I don't want to save the world? What if I wanted to be an average person?

My viewpoint that applies for all video games: Vanilla Minecraft got old because once you have the powers of a god, you don't need to work for anything and/or you've already seen it all, making further progression pointless.

A fantastic game to represent this is The Guild 2. In that game, you didn't have to fulfill a prophecy. You weren't a god, and even if you were, you had to work to get there. You simply lived your life and that was that. Why can't more games be like that? Why can't I make my own adventures instead of constantly having this one thought on my mind: "You know you can go do what you want, but you're gonna have to come back some day and fulfill the prophecy you don't give a ♥♥♥♥ about."


TL:DR- Why must I be the one person who fulfills the prophecy because I had to be the all powerful super god? Why couldn't I be the average joe?

Are there any games where I am not the "main ultra powerful" character?

[Yeet]

y

[blue]

Publicado originalmente por KailnoSpaces:

It's not a necro, just a very long lasting thread!

2014 - 2016 no posts in between

its a time jumper

[Kailally]

It was hibernating??

[blue]

Publicado originalmente por KailnoSpaces:

It was hibernating??

it was waiting for the ejection

election*

[Richard I]

TF2. You are only the main character if nobody else knows how to play, and you will lose.

[Dirty Dan]

So basically you don't like video games? And how is Minecraft not a "make your own story" game? Video games are entertainment that allows you to take the role of someone else. Who would want a video game that would made them feel like a nobody? They can just go outside, or even go to work and feel like they have little impact on anything they do. There are plenty of farming simulators/minecraft servers/multiplayer games in general/ that make it so your just an average person, so your obviously either very bored or not looking hard enough.

[SuperRobotMonkeyTeamHyperForceGo]

For being a side or background character being one of countless minions who work for evil and don't accomplish much individually or at all sounded kinda interesting. or being the hero's sidekick would be fine for me if I didn't drastically change things like the tide of the war just a battle or just trying to survive while following the hero. For me I think you will always affect the game's story just not affecting the game's world's major story would be find with me

btw anyone know any games where you are a non-"Despicable Me" minion

[SuperRobotMonkeyTeamHyperForceGo]

Publicado originalmente por Maya:

Publicado originalmente por Gus the Crocodile:

Scripted roles are still roles. Or is any game with scripting not a game now?

You're thinking solely in terms of traditional genre tropes, which is by nature not all that helpful when considering new possibilities. Not that I blame you; new is hard.

The main assumption you seem to be operating on is that games must be about winning. But there's no rule that says they have to be about that at all. Proteus is not about winning. Dear Esther is not about winning. And even if you don't want to go that far - you want to retain competition, say - all you have to do is drop the focus from "winning" to "trying your best"...or not even that, really.

This is, after all, what "role playing games" were all about before they had to get forced into videogame structures: about making choices, not necessarily "winning". Games that react to your actions and continue your story whatever that entails, rather than just going "nope, you lost, game over".

You say "in RPGs, you have to defeat the bosses". But why do you have to defeat the bosses? What if you don't? What if half your party gets killed and you barely make it out alive, and the boss gets away, what happens next? What if you decide not to go fight the boss at all, earning the wrath of those who gave you the job. What happens next? There are so many stories of that nature waiting to be told, but instead we get "in RPGs, you have to beat the bosses".

The real reason branching like that doesn't get implemented is just that it's expensive, especially if you're going making some heavily scripted blockbuster - and publishers traditionally hate spending money on bits of game that note everyone will see, it's seen as a waste. But as procedural approaches get better (look at some of the stuff Gaslamp Games are doing with personality traits to build more interesting stories in Clockwork Empires, even), and as traditional publishers get less and less relevant, it will happen more and more. Soldak is (well, I've heard -I haven't played these) another developer who in things like Depths of Peril and Drox Operative have been building games that aren't about being the centre of the universe.

Even in real life, all those competitions those racing games, or sports games or whatever, are built around, are full of competitors that come second, third, fourth, etc. They still get to "play the next level".

Even then, the world revolves around your actions, not the other way around, as you are the human character. So your argument in invalid in that sense.

Also the thing with prescripted events is that, no action outside of the scripted ones are possible, other than the ones performed by the player ofcourse.

And what you are going about is essentially a sandbox game, which still has the player in the centre. which is my point, as long as you have any sort of influence, you will be the centre of focus.

In other words, a game needs a player character to drive the plot forward, so that makes the player > any NPC ingame.

You are always the center of the game but not a game world's story. What I think the point should be is: your character only matters to the game and you but not the overall story of it's world as a game does not have to focus on it's entire world. You could be some random adventurer the hero meets for a split second before he soon forgets you (you also didn't give him any items and you probably just said hey you're that one hero).While the game's story is about your exploits (which may be arguably minor) they did nothing to advance the story of the world as many adventurers are doing the same thing as you are and you are not mankind's savior. Like again being a minion (who is only important to the player) help the great evil but only a microscopic amount. Overall in this situation you didn't leave a mark, your replaceable, and no one saw you as an individual. Only the player saw the individual minion while other characters in the game's world just saw a legion of minions or even if someone specifically saw you, to them you are just a faceless minion.

[Valrossar]

Publicado originalmente por SuperRobotMonkeyTeamHyperForceGo:

words and things

It'd be wise to check the date of the first post. I enjoy seeing that little green box and thinking what thread it was this time :P That said, uh, it's been a while... 14 year old me didn't really articulate points that well.

I think you made my point better than I did so long ago: the game is always centered around the player, as it should be, but I never wanted the whole damn world going around me, too. I mostly play MMOs now; even if we're breaking or mending the entire world, at least it's we, not I alone.

[628]

Almost all MMOs.

[Midnight Sky ✨🌙✨]

Someone bumped a thread so old Shasow posted.

Also, I guess half of Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance can count since the series protagonist ends up getting captured and has to get saved by who it turns out to be the real main character. I say half because you play as both of them.

[SuperRobotMonkeyTeamHyperForceGo]

speaking of MMO does anyone remember the story that was there before the whole resistance story for maplestory that is

[aG| Wardog]

This War of Mine might suit. You control a group of civilians stuck in a city being torn apart by a civil war, just trying to survive. It’s extremely unforgiving, and really, really good.

[crgzero]

Kenshi, Rimworld, Stellaris, just to name a few games where you are the main character/s but you're never a god.

Kenshi is for massochists but it's damn fun.

[mim]

Well most open world multiplayer survival games is your own story...